Kefir Mayonnaise

This was originally written in March, but not published until today (in May). 


Yesterday, my oldest daughter made us some lovely salmon salad on Kamut tortillas. I love her creativity in the kitchen. I love how she always wants to balance our protein and carbohydrates (and also feeds us dessert). Well, she used the last of the mayonnaise.


We have been buying Spectrum brand mayonnaise for a long time. I'm not much of a fan of mayonnaise, but I use it in recipes (never on sandwiches). I got a wonderful recipe for homemade Ranch Dressing, which includes mayo. I've been using kefir as much as possible in our recipes and thought I'd try my hand at this too! I must tell you that the recipe calls for much less oil than is necessary to make an emulsion. It's very easy to just give up, or to think it has been a long time already, but this wonderful moment happens when you have added- very slowly- enough oil to your liquid, and it has the consistency of mayonnaise.




Kefir Mayonnaise (via Kefir Magic)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup kefir (I only use 1/4 cup because it's too much liquid for the amount of oil)

• 2 egg yolks

• 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard

• 1/2  cup organic extra virgin olive oil (I have used up to 1 3/4 cups)

• 1/2 tsp lemon juice

• A pinch of salt and ground black pepper to taste

Method
Place the two egg yolks into a mixing bowl.  Add the mustard, salt and pepper and vigorously beat the ingredients into a smooth paste. Add the lemon juice and continue mixing until texture is smooth again.  Slowly add the olive oil in a thin, steady stream until the mayonnaise becomes thick and smooth.  Add the kefir very slowly, tablespoon by tablespoon, alternating with the oil, ensuring that each addition is absorbed before adding more. Refrigerate and serve chilled.

Despite my lack of love for mayonnaise in general, this makes a pretty good mayo! It is excellent for making dressings and dips, salads and putting on sandwiches. Everyone seems to like it (as much as we like mayo). You could use another less flavorful oil if you aren't partial to the taste of olive oil. It keeps well in the refrigerator at least two weeks (it's usually gone by then). You could try it longer. Sally Falon in Nourishing Traditions (which is on sale for $20.25 at Black Bear Books Online) suggests using whey in homemade mayonnaise which would give it a longer shelf life (which we have also done, but it's usually eaten up quickly). Either way, as long as you refrigerate it, it should stay good for a long time.

Kefir and home made goodies

We have been making kefir lately. In case you are not familiar with what that is here is a website that explains. Actually it is where I got my kefir grains. Alright, so here's what's needed to make kefir:

 milk
kefir grains
a glass jar
a warm spot (Room temperature varies so much. At our house in the early spring, sometimes it's in the 50's or in the 80's if we have a fire in the wood stove. Anything in between seems to work- warmer = faster.)
a coffee filter or cloth

kefir grains up close

 That's pretty much it! I just stir in the grains (which look like small boiled cauliflower to me), cover it with a coffee filter or cloth, and walk away. Enjoy your day, or evening or whenever you made it. I secure the coffee filter with a rubber band or the band for a mason jar. After 12 or so hours, I give the jar a little swirl to see how it's going. I like to use my kefir for several things so sometimes I let it go on until it visibly has separated. Other times, I just let it become a little thicker than milk but a bit sour. Usually not. We strain our kefir through a strainer (non metal), save the grains for the next batch and refrigerate the kefir.

kefir cream cheese up close

Here's how we make cream cheese at our house: Take some kefir that has been strained and allow it to sit at room temperature for a little while until it separates. I use a flour sack tea towel to strain it. I pour all of it into the towel draped in a bowl or pitcher. Keep in mind that there's alot of liquid so it needs to be something big enough to hold all of it at once. I tie the towel into a bag and let the whey drip into the bowl below. Actually I have a wooden spoon that holds the bag that I attached to the bottom of my kitchen counter. I leave it to strain overnight- sometimes longer. Once it has stopped dripping, I bottle the whey for other things and scrape out a soft cream cheese into a dish. I salt it a little bit (my own preference) and stick it in the refrigerator until I need it. It usually doesn't last very long. We eat it on kefir bread most often.

Kefir bread (the best thing ever)

In my attempt to feel better, I have been trying not to eat yeast. Well, not that one strain that comes in the one pound blocks I've been buying in bulk for years. I do love bread. We have spent almost a decade making bread at home, most of that we have milled our own grain to do so. Whenever we are in Boone I have bought this awesome sourdough bread from a Owl Creek Breadworks and it is delicious! I am not really having much luck at making sourdough in this house- maybe it's the fluctuation in temperature, or the water from the well, or just me. Anyway, when I'm at home, I make this bread for myself and my family.

5 cups of freshly ground flour (I like mixing kamut and hard red wheat)
1 cup kefir whey + 2 cups of milk (or 3 cups of kefir, but I like using up the whey)
2 tsp. sea salt

I mix it all together in a removable crock from a slow cooker that was broken. I leave it on the counter for 24 hours, covered. Sometimes it's only 22 hours, but it has a nice bit of time before I need to do anything else.
After the elapsed time, I add a little more flour because it's quite wet. I suppose I could just make it with all of hte flour in it at the beginning but I haven't. It's been delicious as it is. Also, I don't grease my pans at all. I'm not sure if it's my stoneware pans or the flour I dust on the outside, but the bread doesn't stick. Bake it at 350°F for about 40 minutes. Let it sit and cool in the pans for just about 10 minutes let it cool and then enjoy! It's delicious!

kefir bread cooling along with my lunch- kefir bread with chickpea salad (like chicken salad but with chickpeas).

Again the Lord Provides!

I am not a winner. I enter contests all the time but I rarely win. Whenever I competed in events at school I hardly ever won. I was always surprised when I did when I ran track. I never won running events- only jumping. Of course there weren't many jumpers- sometimes none but me so I won by default. I once won a door prize- the coffee table that's in my living room right now. I also won some fabric as a part of a shop hop online at quilt websites. I think in 38 years of entering many contests and competitions, winning only a few times is pretty good. Today I won something too!

Example pot- not the pot I won

I entered the Baraka Neti Pot drawing for $100 worth of free products and I won! I entered at the last minute really, and although there were several chances to enter over the summer so I'm sure others entered several times, my one lone entry got picked! It's really just in time for us too because it's been a bad allergy season for us. We've been doing demolition here and kicking up dust and mold spored and animal droppings and who knows what else! I have caulked around doors and such, but it still gets in. My poor Dear Honey has suffered the greatest out of all of us- working tirelessly on his days off to remove dilapidated parts full of nasty allergens in the heat and up on the roof even! I have really appreciated all that he does for us- and it has been so very evident as of late. He's so good to us! The least I can do is get him a nice manly black matte neti pot made in the USA!

We have had great success with sinus rinsing to combat inhaled allergies. Today I took my Eldest Dear Daughter to have allergy testing and found that she is, like me, allergic to something from every category except foods. Of course they test for common allergens- not the bananas that have hurt her stomach since she was five. We just avoid them now. Really she has had such a time with allergies all her life- and asthma. I have only recently discovered my own allergies and asthma which have gotten worse, but my poor Baby Girl- she's woken up with gunk in her eyes, coughed through many nights, had a constant itchy throat, years of eczema, and hospitalization with asthma. After all of that and many prayers said on her behalf, we finally can say we know the causes of her miseries and combat them. I'm not much on pharmaceuticals. Anyone who knows me will know that I hate taking medicine myself, let alone giving things to my family that will be full of weird side- effect symptoms. Years ago, my Honey went into anaphylactic shock taking NSAIDs (you know- Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Aspirin, etc...) and had to be rushed to the hospital twice in a week for it! The first time he was given adrenaline and an antihistamine and sent home once the symptoms subsided (because of the meds). Once that was out of his system, his symptoms came back again and he was brought by ambulance to the hospital. He spent months on steroids and have since had to be very careful what he takes. NSAIDs are in everything from indigestion relief to sports cream! After all of these years avoiding conventional medicine, it seemed that the best thing to do was to just embrace them and put myself back on allergy medication. Currently I take Quercetin every morning for the more mild allergies, but really I needed something more for fall. I have considered Zyrtec again but I'm going to see if the Neti Pot won't help me out more without side effects. I really believe that the lot may be case in the lap but the Lord is the one who determines the outcome! No, I am not advocating gambling, but I do know we have a Father who sees and who is active always in our lives. He is not absent and I know He answers prayers! Who knows? Maybe winning this contest is an answer to prayer!